


Arbitrary Definitions (That Need to be Said)

by ryssabeth



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, No Tentacles, ace!carlos, canon!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryssabeth/pseuds/ryssabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It comes out a mess, too fast to really hear but translatable and Carlos is about to brain himself on the table. Probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arbitrary Definitions (That Need to be Said)

**Author's Note:**

> it's all my friend's fault that I write for this at all really

“I’m sorry.” It comes out in a surprising blurt of garbled mess—translatable, but warped by his nerves, by the speed at which it came out. Cecil only looks up from his menu (though the weekly Rico’s thing _had_ been getting old, but then they made a date out of it and that, well—that’s _wonderful_ but—).

“Sorry?” Cecil repeats and his mouth turns down and he considers. “Why are you sorry?”

“For not—inviting you into the lab or—you know.”

(How does one explain this? How does one say _I can give you all of me but there is something that’s just_ not _a part of me_? How does this _work_?)

“It’s nothing!” And Cecil’s voice is bright and alive and Carlos is, like, eighty percent sure that he doesn’t get it. And why should he? It’s not like Carlos is being direct or respectable about this in any way, after all, he’s just—trying to say something without the words for that. ( _I’m not what you think I am, you’re not going to get what you want out of this_ —and, nope, rejected paths because _wow I sound pathetic._ )

“No—I mean—what I _mean_ is—“

( _Ugh_ , he thinks.

And then he thinks _uuughgghhhh_ because that makes him think of Cecil and he feels just a little bit better.)

Cecil waits patiently—because not everyone on Earth is as good with words as he is, and Carlos figures he’s used to that by now. Carlos presses forward, or tries to, without embarrassing himself more than he already has, because—“I’m just—it’s not that I don’t want you in my life—I—“ ( _A-plus Carlos, well done_ ). “I don’t do sex.”

Cecil blinks and cocks his head and Carlos is going to brain himself on this table, he really is. “What?”

“Like I don’t—I don’t really have a sex drive or an interest, which is not to say I never will, but it is likely that I will only have a random day in every decade or so, maybe not even, and if I were to _invite you into my house_ , I would be afraid of, I don’t know, giving you the wrong impression—and this isn’t to say, either, like, that I don’t enjoy affection, or kissing you, or holding hands, just that I don’t really _feel_ sex, ever, and—“

“Carlos.”

“—and I’m _sorry_ that I didn’t—it’s just—how do I say it out loud without being _that asshole_ because you’re—what if I lead you on, or something—“

“Carlos.” This time it is softer, but it stops him and his mouth is dry. Cecil’s hands—hands that could be painters hands or something equally artistically minded—close around his own, white-knuckled on the menu that he hasn’t read and doesn’t need to. “That is okay. I will embrace you and curl around you and kiss your hair and your cheeks and your eyelids and sleep in your bed if you let me and that is okay. You are perfect and beautiful and wonderful and that doesn’t change.”

What.

( _What._ )

“What.”

“Nothing changes. I still want to see where you do your science and still want to kiss your nose and write sonnets about your jaw and your hair and you. Sex is not a primary motivator, nor was it ever.”

“But—“

“Shh.”

“Cecil—“

A smile, a hitch in breath, and then, “shhh.”

And Carlos pulls up his menu, only to smile and laugh and almost-vomit behind it.


End file.
